ant at hand, and they made
themselves as comfortable as they could, while they awaited another
day. Now Robert began to draw in his belt, while a hunger that was
almost too fierce to be endured assailed him. His was a strong body,
demanding much nourishment, and it cried out to him for relief. He
tried to forget in sleep that he was famished, but he only dozed a
while to awaken to a hunger more poignant than ever.

Yet he said never a word, but, as the night with its illimitable hours
passed, he grew defiant of difficulties and dangers, all of which
became but little things in presence of his hunger. It was his impulse
to storm the Indian camp itself and seize what he wanted of the
supplies there, but his reason told him the thought was folly. Then he
tried to forget about the steaks of bear and deer, and the delicate
little fish from the mountain stream that Tayoga had mentioned, but
they would return before his eyes with so much vividness that he
almost believed he saw them in reality.

Dawn came again, and they had now been twenty-four hours without food.
The pangs of hunger were assailing all three fiercely, but they did
not yet dare go forth, as the morning was dark and gloomy, with a
resumption of the fierce, driving rain, mingled with hail, which
rattled now and then like bullets on their wooden wall.

Robert shivered in his blanket, not so much from actual cold as from
the sinister aspect of the world, and his sensitive imagination,
which always pictured both good and bad in vivid colors, foresaw the
enormous difficulties that would confront them. Hunger tore at him,
as with the talons of a dragon, and he felt himself growing weak,
although his constitution was so strong that the time for a decline in
vitality had not yet really come. He was all for going forth in the
storm and seeking game in the slush and cold, ignoring the French and
Indian danger. But he knew the hunter and the Onondaga would not hear
to it, and so he waited in silence, hot anger swelling in his heart
against the foes who kept him there. Unable to do anything else, he
finally closed his eyes that he might shut from his view the gray and
chilly world that was so hostile.

"Is Areskoui turning his face toward us, Tayoga?" he asked after a
long wait.

"No, Dagaeoga. Our unknown sin is not yet expiated. The day grows
blacker, colder and wetter."

"And I grow hungrier and hungrier. If we kill deer or bear we must
kill three of each at the